


ask for rain, receive a storm

by akingvlin



Series: when the universe needs a goddamned break [1]
Category: Seduce Me (Visual Novel)
Genre: ALL THE GAY, Alternate Universe - Dark Timeline, Angst, Dark Timeline is Dark, F/F, F/M, M/M, Murder, Non-binary character, Polyamorous Character, Polyamorous relationship, Role Reversal, THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS HERE, The Demon Lord's A+ Parenting, The Demon War, between-reality wormholes, blame the universe, but not really..., lack of sanity, so much murder, species superiority, there's no good way to tag this, time loops, we warned you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-24 22:19:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16184318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akingvlin/pseuds/akingvlin
Summary: Veronica Pace and Argent Anderson were never supposed to know anything about each other. The universe has other plans.





	1. asking for rain

Argent Anderson stepped out of school, breaking away from Suzu and Naomi for the day and turned their face to the sky, deep red hair falling back from sage-green eyes so oddly colored they had been described as being ‘the color of antifreeze’ by a particularly petty Lisette. When nothing but blue swims across their vision, an air of dissatisfaction curled around their form like some particularly affectionate housecat.

It had been sunny and warm for weeks now, with only the occasional cloud cover to bring reprieve to the heat. Suzu was enjoying the weather immensely but Naomi had complained on multiple occasions about her skin-care routine gaining an extra ten minutes due to the almost constant sun exposure during their walk to and from school.

_ Some rain sure would be nice,  _ Argent thinks as they shoot one last glance at the cloudless sky. So much hinged on Argent’s mind these days however, that the constant sun and almost desert-like heat had pulled their thoughts from school.

They adjusted the strap of their bag and kicked a stray rock out of their path idly. Then they felt a sharp yank at their shoulder and their world went black.

They’d come to regret that thought about the rain later.


	2. exchange the sorrows for the joys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica wakes up in a body that's not hers and comes to the prompt decision that today is just not her day and nothing is going to go right. She's absolutely correct.

Veronica Pace is immediately aware of two things. The first is that the air tastes clean. Truly clean, with the lack of ash and blood that permeates everything around the castle nowadays. The second is the absence of her weapons and the lack of power thrumming through her veins; the muscles she usually feels cording under her skin gone and replaced with soft skin and limbs unused to combat, if the way they shake when she tries to stand is anything to go by.

She finds herself on the ground of the woods outside her grandfather’s mansion...or at least what she thinks is her grandfather’s mansion - she’d only ever seen pictures and her father had never taken her there. Her father had never taken her _anywhere_ , she thinks uncharitably and pushes the thought from her mind with the kind of ruthless efficiency she’s learned after spending almost half a decade on the battlefield.

She takes careful steps forward, watching the mansion for any signs of movement. She hadn’t known Lucien Pace well - had just known that he had taken the Pace Toy Company and made it one of the most successful businesses in the field - and he’s been dead for years at this point. The mansion should be uninhabited, but whatever spell (she’s inclined to think _curse_ , and it wouldn’t be the first time) has dropped her here is unfamiliar and there’s no telling who or what she might encounter.

These steps up the drive and toward the grand front doors seem almost rehearsed, and after a moment she realizes why. She’s done this before. That singular thought brings her pause as she winces. If this is the past, she’s about to walk into another uphill battle all over again. Thoughts of James hurling slurs and Damien’s bipolar behavior that boded nothing good and everything bad fills her head and for a moment she just wants to turn around and go back into the woods.

Then another thought hits her with all the force of a tornado meeting a volcano and all that such a thing implies. She can’t feel the baby that’s supposed to be growing in her womb. That thought pains her more than anything else. It’s quickly replaced with anger. If whoever or _whatever_ had done this to her had caused her to lose Saero’s child, she was going to rip them limb from limb and _enjoy_ it.

Veronica’s brain stalls before she scowls, her brain making connections as quick as lightning flashing through the sky. Her feet carry her forward in her rage, the snarl on her face pulling oddly at the scar across her chin. If she was here that meant that the brothers were here, and if she had lost her _child_ for their sick version of a _joke_ , she was going to kill them all and screw the war.

It’s no issue to throw open the doors, as weak as her limbs are, and she stalks forward to where the prone bodies of the brothers should be. Recognizing Raestrao’s jacket she wastes no time in yanking him up. The distant part of her brain recognizes that her strength should be much more than this, that she should not struggle so much in pulling James up to face her, but that part of her is outweighed by her rage.

“You,” she hisses, their noses meeting and his shallow breaths fanning across her face. “I swear to god you pompous son-of-a-bitch if you did this and I lose Saero’s child because of _you_ I’m going to show you just how much damage a _scum-of-the-earth_ hybrid can do. Do you understand me?”

She doesn’t get an answer and that somehow just makes her angrier. She gives his jacket a sharp jerk. “Answer me,” she snarls.

In the next moment, there are two arms curling under her elbows and a voice in her ear, hauling her off of Raestrao. Well, that just won’t do.

“I think that’s enough now, don’t you think, Princess?”

She goes still because she’s heard that slimeball tone before, even if it’s smoother than anything she’s heard in years previous. _Uzaeris._ There’s a moment where the arms around her relax, and before they have the chance to tighten again, she whirls around and her hand whips across his face without hesitation.

The connection of flesh striking flesh with force is audible in the complete and utter hush that falls across the mansion’s foyer as her hand connects with Erik’s cheek. His head whips to the side and she backs away immediately as his violet eyes widen in shock. “You get your filthy hands off of me, Uzaeris,” she hisses.

And then Damien speaks and her blood goes from boiling to frigid in her veins in an instant because he sounds _timid_ and the last time he sounded like that was five minutes before he slaughtered enough demons to rival the population of Los Angeles.

_“Are you not Mr. Anderson’s grandchild, then?”_

For a moment that ironclad control she has on her mental shield slips and it all comes tumbling out as she meets Damien’s blue-purple gaze squarely, not breaking eye-contact on the chance that he flipped the switch and lunged at her.

“Who’s Anderson?” she snaps, still scrambling to pull her mental shields back together.

Damien visibly marshals himself and tries again. “Ms. Pace,” he tries, his tone trying for placating. He stops, however, when he no doubt catches the thrill of fear that tone causes. “Ms. Pace, you’re safe, I swear,” he pleads.

“I am never safe when you’re around,” she hisses, desperately wishing for the bō staff Saero had been showing her how to use or her bow and arrows. They would not have been much of a defense against a demon of Damien’s caliber but it would have been _something_.

It goes without question that he catches the underlying thoughts behind her words and his eyes widen. “Ms. Pace, I don’t know who you think I am, but I promise whatever you think it is I’ve done, I haven’t. I would never hurt you.”

“As if I would believe those words coming from the mouth of the demon who slaughtered his way through three cities on the Abyssal Plains less than a month ago. You can’t lie to me, Damien when _I watched you do it_.

“You slaughter cities without thought, Damien, and tear through the minds of others like they’re wet paper. You are nightmare given form, so don’t you dare try to speak to me about _safe_.”

Unbidden the images that plagued her nightmares for days afterward come to mind, even as she finally brings her shields back up. Demons left brain-dead and brutally slaughtered on every street in Isesling, Altalore, and Vul Srilstead. And in the middle of it all had been Damien, death in his eyes, a scythe in his hands, and blood dripping from his fingertips.

It’s Sam that steps forward next and Veronica can almost feel the tension in the room go up, although it causes the opposite effect for her. Sam had always been a good modifier for Damien’s behavior for reasons that she could never figure out. But looking closer, she finds she doesn’t recognize this Sam; the minuscule differences were a lot more difficult to ascertain at first glance than the glaringly obvious differences between the James she saw just hours ago and the James she was confronted with now.

When he speaks, it’s not the low growl she’s come to associate with him - the growl of a strong animal. It’s less measured, more brash, and has none of the careful consideration his words normally do.

“I think it’s time you explain some things to us.”

Veronica eyes him critically, steeling herself before nodding. “Yes, that’s probably a good idea.”

 

* * *

 

And after everything - after explanations and mental conversations and tense discussions around the dinner table that was marked with shouting matches and snarling and quiet disbelief, Veronica is left to her own devices in her room with her head spinning from all of the information that’s come to light.

Whatever kind of past this was, it wasn’t _her_ past. Because she had just held a conversation with Erik and Matthew, who were both _sane_ and _aware_. She had told them what she knew of them, of who they had grown to be and their reaction had been...staggering, to say the least. She had watched in silence as horror and disgust and fear had crossed features that were both familiar to her and yet completely foreign all at once.

She hangs her head in her hands, cursing herself for the way her limbs shake like she’s Atlas trying to hold the weight of the world on her shoulders.

 

* * *

 

Malix comes for her - for _Anderson_ , she corrects, because she’s defeated Malix once before and killed him in a skirmish about a year ago after he’d become one of Satan’s lieutenants and her mark of hybridity had started changing her body to adapt to the world she’d chosen to inhabit. As he’s ranting, she’s trying to stifle snickers behind her hand.

It only serves to piss him off more, but compared to the Malix she’d fought and killed at the wall, this Malix is ridiculously underpowered and whiny instead of fierce and intimidating.

The brothers are looking at her like they don’t know what to make of her, but that’s fine. They’re all still adjusting to the fact that everything is different. She’s not Anderson’s grandchild, but if Harold Anderson had been anything like Lucien, she has a feeling she wouldn’t have minded being related to him.

She lets James handle Malix even if she hasn’t quite come to terms with the fact that she doesn’t have any of her previous strength since being put here.

After the fact - sitting on one of the stairs in the foyer - she begins to form a plan on how to get some of her strength back. There’s no Mirth and no Sarge here to beat her back into shape. And she can’t imagine the boys agreeing to spar no-holds-barred hand-to-hand ever since James remembered the fact that she was pregnant. Now, no longer in an all-consuming rage, she regrets letting that fact slip. Because now it means the brothers are highly reluctant to spar with her. Sam is the only one that agrees to spar with her without at least ten minutes of cajoling and bribery; he still holds back no matter how many times she’s told him not to.

She leaves the spars frustrated and unhappy with her progress, rather than tired and satisfied with the soreness in her muscles. It’s nothing less than infuriating, but she can’t quite find the words to explain to the brothers why sparring all out means so much to her.

 

* * *

 

And then one morning, she wakes to the feeling of someone standing over her. Her eyes snap open and come face to face with the one woman she’s wanted to see since this whole ordeal has started. She doesn’t even think about the fact that this probably isn’t _her_ Diana and the words are out of her mouth before she can even think about the consequences of them.

“Ezaeur, thank god. How’s Saero? I know he can’t be taking this well. You have to know I didn’t mean for this -”

She falters at the coldness in red eyes that have - for the past eight years - never looked at her with anything other than affection and pride.

She lets out a strangled yelp as Diana lashes out and suddenly there’s a hand at her windpipe and squeezing dangerously.

“I don’t know how you know about Saero or how you know my true name but you will not mention either again, do you understand?” Diana snaps.

Veronica winces but nods, taking shallow breaths through her nose to counteract the hand at her throat. The hand vanishes and Veronica takes a deep breath, filling her lungs. Diana’s weight disappears from the bed and she takes the opportunity to sit up and watch her would-be-wife pace across the floor.

“I know why you’re here, Diana, but I can’t tell you with any certainty that Raestrao will go with you, even to change the tide of the war.”

Diana’s back stiffens as she stops. “Excuse me?”

Veronica snaps her mouth shut so quickly her teeth make an audible _click_ as they connect. Before she can help it, hysterical laughter bubbled past her lips. “Diana, really, I know you -”

“What makes you think you know anything about me?” Diana hisses, and her glamor starts to falter in her anger, surprise aiding in the failure of what would normally be a foolproof illusion.

Veronica’s patience snaps.

“Because we’re _married_ , Ezaeur!” she snaps, standing up and stepping into Diana’s space. “I bound my soul to you and to Saero in a private ceremony in the garden five years ago and I’m carrying Saero’s child. There is little we don’t know about each other.”

Veronica only has a moment to watch Diana’s facial expression flicker between confusion and anger and fear before she feels a hand throwing her back; no amount of sparring with Sam or any physical conditioning she’s done to try and get an ounce of her former power back could have helped her in the face of Diana’s full-strength. Her head connects with a sickening thud on the corner of the bookshelf, causing it to land on top of her as she lands on the floor. She can just barely make out Raestrao bursting through the bedroom door and Diana spinning to grab his arm even as he lunges for her prone form.

As soon as the portal that Diana summoned from underneath them to take them back to the Abyssal Plains closes, Veronica’s vision goes black and she registers nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> In case there's any confusion Veronica Pace and Argent Anderson are based off of ourselves and take the place of the reader-insert character in the Seduce Me games. Leave a review below and let us know what you think!


End file.
